Hotel Rwanda (2004)

Most of the horror in Hotel Rwanda happens just outside the frame, and that choice cuts both ways. It lets a wide audience face the 1994 genocide, but it also means the swelling score sometimes does the work the images hold back. The film knows the world looked away, and its anger is aimed at the people who could have helped and didn’t. Don Cheadle plays Paul Rusesabagina as a careful, polite hotel manager who keeps people alive with favors, phone calls and nerve, and you can see what each day costs him. A quiet moment alone with a necktie says more than any speech. Sophie Okonedo matches him as Tatiana, steady and terrified at once. Nick Nolte gives the UN colonel a bitter, ashamed honesty. Joaquin Phoenix plays a cameraman who suspects how little his footage will change. Terry George never turns Paul into a superhero. An 8.8 because it’s honest, humane and impossible to forget. $613.09 says you finish it and find yourself telling someone about Paul and Tatiana tomorrow.

What works: Don Cheadle and Sophie Okonedo give quiet, devastating performances, and the film never lets the world’s failure off the hook.

What doesn’t: Keeping the violence mostly off screen softens parts of the history, and the score sometimes pushes emotion the scenes already carry.

Who it’s for: Older teens and adults ready for a serious, humane film about the genocide and the people who kept others alive.